Shit-kies

Knowing everything I know about what the management of Hostess did to overcompensate its incompetent leadership while forcing concessions from its unions before finally just shutting them down, the news yesterday that Hostess products will soon be back on our grocery store shelves was enough to make a maggot puke.

Quite frankly (and there are few people on the planet who enjoy sweets as much as I do), there's a better chance I'll spend $20 on a shit sandwich than that I'd ever spend another nickel on Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, or fucking Ho-Hos.

Peace,
emaycee

Another nail in the republican party coffin

If there's a political organization that is more tone deaf  than the republican party (not that I care--their loss is our gain) I'm not sure history has ever recorded it.

The filibuster by Wendy Davis, a state senator in Texas, against the republican controlled legislature's attempt to pass a harshly restrictive abortion bill could not have possible put the republicans in a harsher light had the script been written by Gloria Steinem.

The anti-abortion bill couldn't pass in a regular legislative session, so Gov. Rick Perry calls a special session.  Courageous woman filibusters for almost thirteen hours and is finally only able to be stopped by bullshit technicalities.  Men call for a vote which is righteously yelled down by female pro-choice supporters.  Republicans claim vote was done before midnight deadline, only it wasn't.  They then change times of vote in the computer.  Finally realize they are completely fucked, and numbnuts governor calls for another special session beginning July 1st.

Women, Latinos, and young people are all overwhelmingly in favor of a woman's right to choose, republicans get decimated in elections by all three groups, and all yesterday did was further entrench them in the Democratic Party.

It takes a lifetime to create old, white men--and best of luck to republicans with that strategy.

Peace,
emaycee

Fucking told you so!

Well, well, well.  Seems Donny Ferguson, the numbnut assistant to Rep. Steve Stockman who claimed it was easy to live on food stamps per the Food Stamp Challenge that Democrats had undertaken, didn't actually live off of the food he bought.  Nope, he had to take a flight during the week and didn't want to fork over the money it would have cost to take his food with him as extra baggage.  In a nutshell, he fed his smug face as usual.

Surprise, surprise--though I suspected as much in a previous post.  Had Mr. Ferguson any moral courage whatsoever, he would have went hungry for the remainder of the week, like any SNAP recipient would have had to do had they made the same mistake.

So not only is Mr. Ferguson an asshole, he's a lying asshole as well.

And once again, he has plenty of company among his fellow republicans.

Peace,
emaycee

SCOTUS on the VRA, short version

"We republicans can't win elections on the merits of our argument anymore, so we're going to restrict all those folks of color who don't vote for us anyhow in the hopes of holding onto what little power we still have for a few more years until the asteroid hits and we're extinct.  Our moral cowardice is exposed by the fact that the vast majority of states that will take advantage of our decision are solid republican states--and we want to keep them from looking like California electorally for a few more years so we can continue to take care of the wealthy and Big Business while inflicting the most harm we can on working Americans."

The End.

Peace,
emaycee

Not a pretty sight

Once again...I'm not trying to make light of the NSA spying program, but Digby reported yesterday that we've reached a point where "...it's always possible someone is watching you take a shit."

Quite frankly, I'd feel a lot more sorry for the poor bastard who has to watch my fat ass sitting on a toilet while I take a dump than I would for myself being watched as I do it.

Seriously.

Peace,
emaycee

Yes, Virginia, food stamps do work

Many years ago (this would have been during the Reagan years, when the republican assault on America's poor began in earnest) I worked with a young woman who told me that when she was five her father left her, her mother, and her two younger sisters without so much as a note goodbye.  Her mother didn't work and eventually her family went on both welfare and food stamps.  After a while, once her mother had obtained a good job and got on her feet, they stopped living on government assistance.  The young woman told me that she would never complain about having her taxes pay for welfare or food stamps because, she said, her family would have ceased to exist without the help.  Even though it had been more than ten years since her family's travails, she still sounded as grateful as could be.

I thought about her when I read this piece by Trish Thomas Henley, now a professor of literature at the University of Cincinnati, explaing how food stamps helped her feed her family during trying times, and where she had ended up.

Now I know that not every food stamp recipient ends up with a Phd., but food stamps are an appeal to our better selves for a better America.  For SNAP recipients it is a lifeline to the hope for a better life.  In short, it is the right thing to do.

And one has to wonder, in our so-called Christian nation, if Christian groups didn't spend so much time hating on the gays, and actually following what Jesus taught, how much less we'd need to spend on SNAP to begin with.

Peace,
emaycee

Damn straight

We've been told that elections have consequences...but apparently that isn't so when Democrats win them.

Republican obstructionism on judicial nominations and vacancies to oversight organizations like the NLRB has virtually reached the point of absurdity.  We've held the Senate and the Presidency since 2008 and there are still an inordinate amount of vacancies on the courts.  The NLRB will soon be unable to do its job because of a lack of board members due to republicans filibustering President Obama's nominees.

Harry Reid is threatening to change the Senate rules (again) so that nominees can pass with a simple majority (this is what we call a democracy, for our less than bright republican friends), but it appears his margin of victory is so thin its anorexic.  Nice then that Larry Cohen, President of the Communication Workers of America, is threatening Democrats who do not support this with both a complete loss of support and primaries from candidates who actually care about the American people.

One hates to reach a point where we sound like republican fanatics, and even though we are the party of the big tent, we have to have bare minimum support from our Congresspersons on the core principles of our party.  As Mr. Cohen states, without that support such Congresspersons are worthless to us.

Even worse, it makes it so republicans don't have to win elections--they can merely obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, and any hope for making life better for the working men and women of America fades like the setting sun.

Democracy destroyed.

Peace,
emaycee

Thirty pieces of silver

Twenty-four Democrats saw fit to thumb their nose at everything our party stands for when they voted for a Farm Bill that not only cut $21 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program at a time when the economy is still reeling, but also handed out billions of dollars in corporate welfare.  Two of those Democrats, Dave Loebsack of Iowa and Cheri Bustos saw fit today to whine about the inability of the Farm Bill to pass.

While both said they didn't care for the cuts to SNAP (what the fuck? what could be worth voting for the bill then?) and Loebsack tried to give himself cover by reporting that he'd co-sponsored an amendment to restore the amount of the SNAP cuts (Loebsack isn't an idiot and knows that his amendment had about as much chance of passing the republican House as I do of whistling "Dixie" out my ass), they said they were doing it in the best interests of their constituents.

Which is complete and total horseshit. 

Loebsack makes mention that he considers it inexcusable that the Farm Bill didn't pass--no, what is inexcusable is that either he or Bustos as Democrats voted for it at all (Christ, I watched MSNBC last night and they were breaking out the champagne and party hats over its failure to pass) when the bill showed such a complete and total disregard for those in need, which is a core principle of all that our party stands for.

The plain truth is that what Loebsack and Bustos are both bemoaning is not the loss of the best interests of their constituents, but the best interests of their corporate benefactors in Agribusiness.

We can do better than both of them.

Peace,
emaycee

Lies republicans tell us

Someday some scientific researcher should do a study as to exactly what gene it is that republicans are missing that gives them about half the I.Q. of your average ass pimple.

Seriously.

Donny Ferguson, some dim-witted numbnuts who works for Congressman Steve Stockman (R-where else?-Texas) decided he was going to "prove" that eating on $31.50 was easily done (much like the 26 Democrats who took the same challenge but for far more altruistic purposes than degrading hungry people).  He sent out a list of what he bought (seen here), said he actually only spent $27 and some change on it, and reported at the end of the week that he felt fine and dandy.

Accepting as fact that he actually did eat only what he purchased (I have doubts that there is any republican has the moral courage to follow through on such a challenge, and would not be surprised at all if he ate as normal and claimed to have eaten only what was on the list), exactly how stupid do you have to be to realize that a) what he purchased was hardly nutritional and certainly not something anyone who loved their child would also feel good about feeding them regularly, and b) there is a fucking world of difference between eating like that for one week and eating like that for months on end.

In the end, all that Ferguson proves is that it takes a special kind of asshole to mock people who are going hungry, and apparently the republican party is full of them.

Peace,
emaycee

Hallelujah, I love it so

One piece of good news:  the republican version of the farm bill, with its $21 billion cut to the Food Stamp program, went down to an ignominious defeat today, as 62 republicans joined 174 Democrats to vote it down.  (Although republicans who voted against it did so because they believed the bill didn't cut enough--no small bit of irony there).

Good bye and good riddance to another republican effort to make the hungry go hungrier and the poor get poorer so corporate America can suck even more on the teat of our taxpayer dollars.

Peace,
emaycee

Detroit Crock City

Any impression that Michigan's Governor Rick Snyder is anything more than a weak corporate hack have been completely put to rest with the actions of Kevyn Orr, the Emergency Manager he appointed to oversee the city of Detroit's fiscal mess.  Seems Orr, after threatening to sell off the Detroit Institute of the Arts artworks (the last thing that needs to be done is give people one less reason to go to Detroit--sports teams and gambling are about the only reason most folks go to the city as is), is threatening to take the city into bankruptcy.

And why would he do that?  Wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that it will allow him to do an end around on the city's public unions, who otherwise would have to approve the cuts to their pensions (which were promised and earned), and at the same time, pay back the financial firms that stand to lose billions because, basically, they made a bad bet on the city turning itself around, now would it?

How much longer do these people think we're going to watch our government fork over our money to banks and financial firms while they take even more of ours away before all hell breaks loose?

Detroit, with its proud history of standing up for the working rights of America's poor and middle class, would be a fine place to start unleashing the hounds of hell.

Peace,
emaycee

And the bottom drops out

When the history of America's downfall is written, it's hard to see how the abject stupidity of the republican party and its leadership won't have played a monstrous role in said downfall.

One Michael Burgess, a U. S. rep from Texas (and what a surprise that is) who also happens to be an Ob/Gyn (and I wouldn't want any female member of my family within a mile of this mother fucker) recently tried to explain that we should ban abortion after twenty weeks because fetuses masturbate, and if they can feel pleasure, they can feel pain.

Ahem.

Forget the War on Drugs.  Forget the War on Terrorism.  If America is to survive what we really need is a War on Stupidity.

Like yesterday.

Peace,
emaycee

True profiles in courage

Between 28 Democrats voting to cut spending on food stamps and the endless Liberal angst over the NSA spying revelations without a commensurate response to a report showing that one in six Americans has been food poor, I've been about as disillusioned with Democrats, Liberals, Congresspersons, and politics over the past couple of weeks as I can ever remember.

And then I read about the families of the Newtown shooting victims, people who have suffered the worst loss most people can ever suffer,  going back to D. C. to continue the fight to get those without a conscience, those in the pockets of the NRA, to make our country safer....

In the end it may just be habit, but as long as we're still fighting our goals ain't dying.

Peace,
emaycee

2016 on their minds

Even though we haven't even gotten to the 2014 midterm elections, there is already much teeth gnashing over the prospects of Hillary Clinton being our party's standard bearer in the next Presidential election (check out this piece, especially the comments).  While I could think of ten people in less than ten seconds I'd rather have than Secretary Clinton as our nominee, there are a couple of points we should think long and hard about before we write her off as Obama Lite for our goals:

1)  An anti-Obama candidate could possibly be a good candidate...but my biggest worry would be we'll get behind some policy wonk who thinks that whining about drone strikes and NSA spying is going to get us another four years in the White House.  Anybody who thinks the American people as a whole give two shits about either isn't nearly as bright as they think they are.  I'm not entirely certain that having Bill Clinton whispering in her ear "It's the economy, stupid" would be such a bad thing for our chances.
2)  The anti-Hillary faction needs to take a cold, hard look at Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina to see what an unfettered republican party would look like on a national level.  It's entirely possible that we could find a candidate that gives us as good of a chance at victory as Mrs. Clinton, but we better be damn good and certain he or she will--because those states have spent the last three years ramming through their agenda despite not having majority opinion on their side.  I live in Michigan and I'd love to have had a moderate Democrat to veto the policies Michigan's republican legislature has shoved down our throats.  It's going to take light years to reverse them.

There's nothing I'd love more than to watch President Warren take the oath of office in January of 2017, but only if it's going to prevent President Cruz or President Rubio from doing the same.  I'm voting for whoever gives us the best chance of winning, period.

I've seen the ghost of America's future under republican leadership here in Michigan, and it ain't a pretty sight.

Peace,
emaycee

Blind squirrels

Couple the revelation that the man behind the NSA spying leaks, Edward Snowden, donated money to Ron Paul's Presidential campaign with the statements by Rand Paul concerning the government overstepping its constitutional bounds and it seems to me like a bit of a conundrum.

Ron and Rand Paul are not political hacks doing their party's bidding like, say, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.  These two men are certified kooks who believe an American utopia would be one where a person without health insurance with a serious medical condition should be quickly nailed into his or her coffin and placed six feet into the earth.

I've heard tell that even a blind squirrel occasionally finds an acorn, and this certainly may be a case where Liberals are going to march lockstep with the Pauls...but I can't be the only one who's a little bit nervous at the prospect, can I?

Peace,
emaycee

Hindsight is 20/1,000,000

Completely bungled the attacks on 9/11.  Managed to mishandle the only war America has fought since WWII that was necessary.  Got us involved in a second war by using false information, a war which eventually became an even bigger disaster than Vietnam.  Turning a blind eye to torture that destroyed our reputation.  Didn't pay for either war and we paid a steep price with our eventual economic collapse.  Watched over a thousand Americans die in a hurricane in New Orleans that his administration also completely botched.  Presided over the worst recession in American history, as financial disasters go, only the Great Depression was worse.  Watched helplessly as the housing bubble popped and destroyed the one equity that average Americans actually have that's worth anything.

All that, and yet, as of today, George W. Bush has a positive approval rating from the American people for his years in office, 49% to 46%.  For a man who will most likely go down as one of the three worst Presidents in U. S. History.

I'd say something about those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, but a mere six years after the most corrupt President in U. S. history was forced to resign from office we elected another republican who began the never ending economic downward spiral that the working men and women of this country have been sucking on for the last thirty years.

Word of warning:  hold onto your wallets, folks.

Peace,
emaycee

Where we're at

I'll be the first to admit that the ins and outs of spying on Americans is not my forte (not that much else I write about, other than living a middle class existence, really is) but with the amount of Liberal anguish this week over the NSA spying and PRISM revelations, I have a few observations.  Note that in no way am I defending what was done--just pointing out a few things that seemed kind of odd:

• There sure was a lot of  "Can you believe they did this?" that really should have been, "See? I told you so!"  Once the Patriot Act passed, and with each subsequent reauthorization, this kind of spying on Americans was not a matter of if, but of when.
• A lot of people sounded as goofy as Tea Party paranoids in going on about how much we should be worried about the government spying on us.  There's some serious ego out there--I mean, my guess is about 99% of Americans have absolutely nothing going on in their lives that the government gives two shits about.  I mean about 90% of internet content makes NCIS look like fucking Shakespeare, and judging from the inanity I've heard in people carrying on cellphone conversations as if the rest of humanity doesn't exist, the government would need enough No-Doz to fill Lake Superior just to stay awake.  Doesn't make the spying on the 1% who may have something going on in their lives that the government cares about right, just means a lot of people really lack perspective.
• The funniest one I read was this one (which even goofier, Digby actually bought into) by one James Fallows, who because he's watched 24 (among others), presumes to tell us that the rationale behind the spying, ferreting out terrorists, actually is false, because terrorists are such criminal masterminds that they won't fall into the government's trap.  Like the Shoe Bomber setting fire to his heel, the Underwear Bomber setting fire to his dong, and the Boston Marathon bombers who managed to get caught in all of three days.  This is not even mentioning that for all their planning, the 9/11 terrorists missed half their targets.  La Cosa Nostra  they ain't.  Can't even begin--even with his disclaimer--to understand the whole TV show rigamarole.  Man, I watched 24 religiously from its first episode to its last, but I never once believed it bore any more resemblance to reality than your average episode of The fucking Flintstones.
• The piece that scared me the most was this one on Think Progress (which after this The Nation piece on corporate sponsorship of their think tank, the Center for American Progress, may not be so surprising) in which corporate spying was basically played down and government spying was treated as if it were the Bubonic Plague.  Swear to God, it could have been written by Louis Gohmert.  I fear corporate spying exponentially more than than the government--American corporations are only interested in my overpaying for their services, and paying me as little as they can for mine.  At least the government gives a fuck if I live or die--it might be tremendously inept, but it does have my best interests at heart.
• I think sometimes we forget the responsibility that rests on the shoulders of the President.  I have three kids, and if I knew someone wanted to harm them, I'd do whatever it takes to keep them safe--and sleep like a fucking baby at night.  President Obama is responsible for the safety of over 300 million Americans.  I'm not saying that this makes any of this week's revelations about spying on Americans right, just that I can understand his wanting to leave no stone unturned.

In the end, I think what bothers me the most about all of this is that last week the Internation Human Rights Clinic of NYU Law School released a study that showed that 50 million Americans, 17 million of them children, did not have adequate food, and it didn't receive a tenth of the blog space, article space, or TV time as did the spying on Americans.  We're talking an essential necessity of living--eating.

I don't know if we Liberals have become numb to it, feel helpless in the face of it, or are just too interested in showing how intelligent we are, but frankly, it bothers me a whole hell of a lot more knowing that one in six Americans is going hungry than it does that the NSA knows we went to Taco Bell last night and then came home and watched reruns of The Big Bang Theory on TNT.

Peace,
emaycee

$904, 542

This is the amount we, as taxpayers, subsidize each and every Wal-Mart each year thanks to their low wages and scarcity of employee benefits, according to a recent House Committee on Education and the Workforce report.  Note that this dollar amount represents the low end of the subsidy--it could be as much as $1.7 million.  Per store.

Isn't it a bit rich that at a time when so many are complaining of an entitlement culture here in America, of a dependency on the government, that we have a corporation in which its unbridled sucking at the government teat (to borrow a phrase) makes welfare queens look like the children of Bangladesh.

Capitalism, indeed.

Peace,
emaycee

All apologies...or not

One of the reasons I love posts by Markos Moulitsas is his way of cutting through the bullshit--and his post today on the goofiness of Liberal groups calling on republicans to apologize for outrageous comments they make is a perfect example.

I constantly get e-mails from Liberal groups that have petitions that begin "Tell Fox News (insert outrage here)..." and the first thing I think is...Fox News is run by people, and employs people, who take a perverse joy in denying food stamps to poor people, and they're going to give a fuck what a couple thousand Liberals think, most of whom don't even watch the damn channel?

Waste.  Of.  Time.

By all means, point their callousness out, but better to spend the energy telling people we might be able to persuade about their outrageousness, than piss it away on a group who cares what we think about as much as...we care what they think.

Peace,
emaycee

The new revolution

Noted political philosopher and humanitarian Adam Kokesh, the mastermind of the life altering Loaded Gun March, is now calling for a revolutionary army to topple the government of the United States.

Near as I can tell, the reasons for this have something to do with the right to carry an AK-47 with an unlimited magazine capacity and having to pay taxes for our military, the police, firefighters, teachers, Medicare, Social Security and a bevy of other services that upwards of 90% of Americans (not Liberals, Americans) support.

Kind of pales in comparison to "...life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" don't you think?

Peace,
emaycee

Given rights

What is it with conservatives that makes them think they have the right to kill those who don't share their misguided worldview?

Some nutjob gun rights advocate who obviously took one too many hits on the conservative crackpipe sent ricin-filled letters to Michael Bloomberg and President Obama recently in reaction to the threat to his "God given right" to own a gun.  Did I miss someone's landmark study that showed a link between the Founding Fathers who wrote our Constitution and God, much like that link in the Bible between God, and say, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?

Here's a primer for conservatives as to what rights you do have to combat those who disagree with you:

• You can write books like Ann Coulter.
• You can have a radio show like Rush Limbaugh.
• You can have a TV show like Sean Hannity.
• You can have your own blog.  Or contribute to someone else's blog.
• You can write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper.
• You can write your Congressperson.
• You can run for office yourself.
• You can donate money to candidates who support your view.
• You can campaign for candidates who support your view.
• You can vote for candidates who share your views.

There are probably others that I've missed.

Now here's a primer for what you can't do to combat those who disagree with you:

• Kill or maim them.
• Threaten them with bodily harm.
• Destroy their personal property.

And that's pretty much it.  There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that gives anyone the right to use violence to attain their goals. 

And if memory serves, even the right's much cherished Bible has that pesky admonition that "Thou shalt not kill."

Peace,
emaycee